Thursday, October 18, 2012

Keith Domingue talks writing!

As you may recall, I reviewed Luthecker earlier this month and guys...seriously? It's amazing! ESPECIALLY if you love Thrillers. Trust me. You need to add this to your reading list.

Keith is here today to share with you his opinion on writing. Are you a budding writer? This post is for you. He's a smart man, but that will be obvious when you read this. So without further ado, I'll give the floor over. Enjoy!

Write what you know…or not.

“Write what you know” is common advice given to writers when they begin their journey into storytelling. Good advice? Perhaps. It’s been told often enough to be part of the literary vernacular, so it has to have some root basis in truth. But what does that really mean? Taken too literally, that would make Stephen King a very ominous and scary human being, would it not?

Certainly, if you want to write legal thrillers, then having a degree in law, and practicing law for a period of time, would inform you with both stories and a framework that someone without that particular background would be lacking. And it’s worked out pretty well for John Grisham.

But back to the question: What does that really mean?

Well, speaking for myself, “write what you know” is about human nature, in the broadest sense. Write what you know…about Love. Hate. Compassion. Jealousy. Sacrifice. Joy. Desperation. Righteousness.

Write what you know about the defining qualities of character contained in that odd beast, the Homo Sapien.

And you come to know about these things by, well, living life. If you look at many great writers, they’ve had many jobs or careers. Personally, I’ve spent time as an engineer, a martial arts instructor, a financial consultant, a fitness coach and a professional screenwriter. And all of these things informed me when I wrote my very first novel, LUTHECKER.

But not just in a tactical sense. (I really don’t have much experience telling people about their past just based on their behavior, or telling them exactly how their lives are going to end.)

What those careers did, was expose me to a broad array of people, and I learned much about….Love, hate, compassion, jealousy, etc. And that is what I plugged into my imagination when I created Alex Luthecker, his friends, and his enemies.

So I write what I know. And you should too. And if you add vision, imagination, and research, you can write what you know about pretty much anything.